


Wallerina

by bonehandledknife (ladywinter), Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)



Series: The Mountains Are The Same [48]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:59:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6792220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywinter/pseuds/bonehandledknife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Wallerina: A graceful female climber who appears to dance up the climbing wall.</i>
</p><p>“Furiosa?”</p><p>Furiosa closed her eyes for a moment. Then turned around, fingers to her lips for an ear-piercing whistle. Before everybody could turn to her she was shouting, “Battle stations!”</p><p>Her chest was sore from projecting the words into the wind, she told herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wallerina

Council for the day had been moved to the gardens, enjoying the still-mild heat of the morning. They'd finished up early, though a lot of the council members were sticking around to chat.

A warpup was suddenly standing in front of Furiosa, ducking in close to make himself heard.

"Lookout says there's a convoy on the horizon."

Furiosa tensed, “Numbers and make.”

“About eight small riders and a three trucks.”

She looked around, at the council members slowly drifting away or chatting about how they were going to make the Citadel better. She so hoped for a moment of peace for them, she hoped it was something else and went over to the lookout post to look for herself but.

There they were, all but visible to the naked eye, their dust spreading out low and threatening behind them.

She felt Oti come up next to her, subbing for Ace while he recovered from his surgery still.

“Furiosa?”

Furiosa closed her eyes for a moment. Then turned around, fingers to her lips for an ear-piercing whistle. Before everybody could turn to her she was shouting, “ _Battle stations!_ ”

Her chest was sore from projecting the words into the wind, she told herself.

 

They were under-manned for keeping the entire Citadel secure, but thanks to the siege and the drills they'd done for it, most people were pretty clear on their roles. She'd sent a runner to call the alarm over the loudspeaker, so Furiosa arrived in the council hall to find most of the people she needed already where she needed them, voices calling immediately to her to let her know which crews were in place.

Gilly brought her SKS and then stayed near as reloader.

The convoy rumbled in between the Citadel towers a few minutes later. Furiosa signaled for ‘standby’ because something about the pattern of those cars…

The lead car honked its horn, and somebody bellowed through a rigged up bullhorn.

“ _YO. FURIOSA!_ ”

…it reminded her of how the Citadel rigs would line up to wait for the lift.

Kompass handed her a looking glass

Ace was - or should be - resting in her quarters. His crew, lead by Oti, was positioned in the garages, guarding the lift platform. She suddenly wished she was too, or that she had a way to talk to Ace, because— _are you seeing this too??_

"Boss, are those… Gastown boys?" Kompass asked, sounding like he was just as surprised.

She handed him the looking glass.  "Look a lot like warboys to me. If I’m not completely wrong, that’s Volt there up front.”

"Shoutin'? Yeah, that's Volt all right," he agreed as he took a look himself. "What the hell did they do to come on a Gastown convoy?"

"Let's find out," she shrugged, reaching for the microphone. She flicked the switch, heard the loud buzz, and carefully held the thing a hands length from her mouth.

 _“State your purpose!_ ” Her shout echoed between the towers.

“ _Furiosa_!" He sounded pleased even through the bullhorn attached to the truck. " _We're here to trade_!”

“What” she heard murmurs behind her.

“Did he say trade?”

“Think we should believe 'im?”

She turned back to her sheltered little lookout position, half-hidden behind the water controls. No sense leaving herself exposed to snipers. “ _You speak for Gastown_?”

“ _...all of Gastown yeah. Got myself made Boss!_ " Volt shouted.

That caused another flurry of murmurs to rise up behind her and Furiosa quietly reined in her own questions because first of all:

“ _Why should we believe you?_ ”

“ _‘ere look, we brought some barrels! Right prime guzzoline! You can test it iffn you think I’m tryin’ to cheat!_ " He called. " _Jus' thought with all this new 'leadership sit-chu-ation' we'd try'n get along._ ”

"...and they are out of water," Toast murmured. “If these old figures of Joe’s are right, their stores would’ve run near dry by now.”

“And they all look parched and jittery,” Kompass murmured, eyes still plastered to the spyglass

“We should offer them an olive branch first,” Capable said, clarifying when she saw the confusion, “Mercy. We’re strong enough to give them mercy, aid. We’re strong enough to make this gamble.”

“And what if it doesn’t pay off?” Dag challenged. “What if that opens us to attack?”

“It also opens us to the opportunity of everyone benefitting.” Capable insisted, “And I don’t think this is much of a gamble, look at them.”

She waved down at the convoy and even from here, the wariness of their movements were unmistakeable. Furiosa looked through the spyglass once more, and yes, Volt did look full of bravado, but uncertain too.

Furiosa thumbed the microphone button. _"We can talk,"_ she said into it, and Volt looked relieved, maybe. She wondered if his position wasn't fully established yet, and if he'd flouted his hoped-for ability to establish trade with the Citadel as a way to solidify his own leadership. That could work in their favour; they weren't likely to double-cross if their own leadership hinged on continued access to water.  

If they weren’t lying, that was.

 _"You and one more person can come up for negotiations,"_ she told him. _"And bring a barrel of guzz."_ she let her eyes drift over the barrels.

Volt nodded and shouted instructions to his men, and they moved over to the barrel truck.

 _"Left hand row, the third one,"_ Furiosa instructed. There was no visible reaction to that, no slumping shoulders or hasty talking, but she'd reserve judgement until she'd talked to Volt and had the garage boys test the guzzoline.

"Send a runner to Oti. If the guzz is on the up and up, he can bring Volt to the mess hall."

One of the older warpups that served as runner nodded.

"I'll go with," Janey said, shouldering her rifle. Furiosa nodded, relieved. Volt had been popular, a well-respected warboy and an esteemed artist at the warboys' decorative skin carving. It was probably good to have somebody there whom he couldn't take in based on his prior role in the Citadel.

 

* * *

 

Feng watched them go and tried to remind herself that she didn’t _want_ a seat at this table. Didn’t _want_ to negotiate with warboys. It just galled to be out of the loop, to have to trust these young girls, to do it right. To not fuck everybody over in their weakness and eagerness to please. To her mind they remained Johanna’s girls, and Johanna had never quite had the ruthlessness Feng felt was needed in the wasteland.

“Sometimes it’s hard to not have an itchy trigger finger, y’know what I mean?” Gilly walked over to her, brown hands tight on her gun, “Yours have their orders?”

Feng nodded, “The Soundless are on standby for support and extraction if things go south.”

“Would be a pity if it did. Probably best I’m not at the table myself.” The Vuvalini hummed, “I know how to survive and have all the habits for it. Not sure that I have those for peace.”

“Do you think fighting ever ends?” Feng snapped.

“That’s a good question, ain’t it?” Gilly shot back, “Bet Joe thought war never ended and acted like it, named stuff after it and everything.”

“What does Joe’s ways ever—”

“Getting strength, remaining ruthless, feeding war.” Gilly stated, “You are what you feed.”

“That doesn’t mean those _girls_ have any clue how to negotiate!”

“And we do? You’re as old as I, you remember having ‘nuclear deterrents’ and how little that worked. You’ve known too what it is to have power held over you and your lady parts and your heritage and how that only caused festering. Wanting beat on those stronger for their foot on our necks. It’s no different if you’ve become the one pressing the foot.”

“So we’re going to let those girls mess up? Trying to find a different way?”

“You want to be at the forefront forever? This needs to be their world more than it needs to be ours. If their new ways don’t work, we’ll still be at their backs, eh?”

“Sometimes you only have one chance to get it right, one life to gamble.” Feng argued.

“...‘we are all visitors to this time, this place’,” she replied after a pause, “ ‘We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home.’ ”

“Sounds like something Johanna might say,” Feng said, not sure if she was annoyed about it or not.

Gilly shrugged, “That’s what bathii always said.”

“Bathii?”

“Ah. ‘ _Grandmother_.’ Sorry. Had forgotten her words for a long while, the world being what it is.”

Feng eyed her, “Oh?”

“She didn’t ‘return home’ peacefully.”

“Hmm.” Feng hummed doubtfully, “And you of a sudden remember something of peace and how to behave in it, is that right?”

“It’s hard to remember, ever since the world fell, what it was like back then,” Gilly finally said, gripping at her rifle, “I mean we remember it as a time of plenty but. These girls— women. Well… _Tribunes_. They said they read—“ Gilly broke off, eyes distant.

“What.” Feng felt irritated and impatient.

“Even then, with so much wealth back then,” Gilly finished. “They fought for more. Kept fighting until the world broke under the fighting.”

And, well, Feng remembered knowing how her mother was struggling to earn more for them, to provide for them both and was rarely at home. How the families in the neighborhood compared sons and daughters and the grades they received and the schools they’ve gotten into, compared houses, cars, vacations. How she felt poor for never having gone to spring break in Hawaii, how they only drove a Lexus and not a Benz, how her mother despaired at their wardrobe, how they always felt behind. She’d always felt somewhat bitter and driven and angry for it.

And to have one one hundredth of what she’d had then would seem beyond luxurious now.

“The Tribunes said that they read that people from Before still never felt like they have enough, and when I tried to guide them better, to argue against them I realized that I couldn’t find—” Gilly stumbled against her own words but pushed on, “Even the Green Place, maybe for Furiosa it felt decadent, but she was young. She never saw how much we worried. And trying to remember even further back...”

“You could only remember your grandmother’s words?” Feng guessed, staring sightlessly into the middle distance. Could she even remember any of her own grandmother’s words? Or even any of her mother’s? None of their advice seemed applicable to the present but—

“Her life was, was _hard_ . Being who she was there was, what they did to her husband and children, wouldn’t be so much different than we have here now in this trashheap of a world. But she still said things like that. Like the words of these Tribunes. Words of forgiveness and peace.” Gilly shook her head, “She’d said that was the only way she clawed out of her situation as much as she did. Hoping for it, _learning_ how to hope for it again, even around the distrust and the wariness.”

“Learning how to hope.” Feng murmured, rubbing her fingers together, absently chasing the feeling of a warm cup of tea.

 

* * *

 

“But we shouldn’t treat them with suspicion,” Capable argued to Furiosa as they walked down to the mess hall, “It’ll just give them grounds to treat us with suspicion as well.”

"It’s not that,” Furiosa tried to explain, looking at both her and Toast carefully, “he won't expect any charity, he'll have come with something worthwhile to trade."  Toast joined them with word that the guzz was good and Volt and his second were waiting.

“We have more than enough water—”

“And they have more than enough guzzoline, which we still need," Furiosa said with emphasis. "For the patrols, the pumps, and we need some backup guzzoline to help with the Mill Rat’s pumps if there are too many injuries or a harvest comes in and we need more hands. If we give him more than he hoped for, we're weakening our position down the line. Any trader will come to us with raised prices, figuring we've got plenty if we're willing to give away our water and goods."

Capable frowned at her, but Toast was nodding.

"We'll haggle a bit and give them about what they expect - less than they hoped for, more than they feared for. And most important, the promise of future trade."

 "That will mean more for Gastown than a few extra barrels water now," Toast agreed.

“And because they’ll have to haggle for it, they’ll trust it more.” Furiosa added, “Easier to trust that the things that you fought over, and easier to treaty with others if you’re allowed to have self-respect.”

 

When they arrived in the mess Furiosa was entirely unsurprised to find Ace there. Volt and one of the ranking Gastown boys were sitting at a table with Oti and Ace. Janey was also there, observing quietly from a table away, her rifle within easy reach. There were three more of Ace's crew standing guard.

Ace greeted Furiosa with a hint of ' _yes, fine, I should still be resting_ ' in his glance, and she hid her amusement, knowing no comment from her was required. He looked like the walk from her quarters had already made her point for her.

Volt introduced Caltex, who greeted them respectfully, and Furiosa introduced Tribunes Toast and Capable. Volt looked at them with interest, maybe some confusion, but either Oti or Ace had clearly brought him up to speed about the new situation in the Citadel because they weren’t dismissed. Good.

Furiosa and the Tribunes sat down.

A few minutes later, after finding out just how difficult the situation in Gastown had become, Capable instructed Mazda, one of the guards, to arrange for somebody to bring water down to the waiting convoy.

"Let them drink, and fill their personal canteens," she instructed, and Furiosa was pleased to see that Mazda didn't hesitate or look first at Ace or Oti, just nodded and went to arrange it.

"That's the only water you'll get for free," Toast told Volt, and started the negotiations.

 

* * *

 

"Weren't that just one surprise after'nother," Ace summarised as Furiosa accompanied him to her quarters. He looked grey and tired; he'd definitely been on his feet too long, she thought. The walk all the way to the garage tower and back had been a bit much. Tired as he clearly was, he also looked pleased. "Volt in charge of Gastown! Looks like he came though, the boys said the guzz tests right good."

Furiosa slowed down her walk, so he didn't have to pause for air.

"And the Tribunes dealt well," he said thoughtfully.

"They did, didn't they?" Furiosa said, pleased to hear him agree with her thoughts. They'd been strict but fair, obviously having taken her warning about being taken seriously to heart. In addition to the main guzz-for-water trade they'd added in a favourable deal about supplying seeds for some of the more easily indoor-grown produce - spinach and mustard greens mostly - so Gastown could try growing them for itself. Citadel greenthumbs would be lent who would teach their trade and help set up greenhomes for Gastown, who would lend men and vehicles for scouting runs and patrols for the same duration.

Setting up Gastown for self-sufficency was more efficient than how Joe had been running trades, keeping everything close so everybody would be dependant on him. Better to have strong allies that could act on both of their interests than welding a town to them they that they’d have to throw away resources to take care of. Furiosa had always thought that transporting fresh leafy greens across the wastes - where much of the cargo inevitably arrived wilted or ruined - made little sense.

The whole encounter had taken a few hours, from waiting for the guzz to be tested to the negotiations themselves, to the exchange of guzz for water barrels. It had been more tense than Furiosa had anticipated at first, the situation new and still a little uneasy, neither side completely comfortable with the other yet. But she hoped that the way the Tribunes had acted had made clear that the Citadel was a new place and wanted this connection, this alliance with Gastown instead of how the Citadel had been held by Joe above the other two towns, and that it would go a way toward establishing a new kind of stability in the region.

The info Volt had been able to give about Bullet Farm, limited though it was, also helped. She'd have to talk with the others about if it was wise to send a talker or if it would be better to wait until they came to petition the Citadel for water.

"You stayin' for a rest too?" Ace asked as she helped him sink down onto the bed.

"I can't, I think I need to…" she gestured vaguely. Make sure everybody was stood down. Talk to the council about what had been negotiated with Gastown. Oversee… organise… things.

"Looked to me like the Tribunes had things in hand," he murmured, not letting go of her hand. "And like you could do with a little downtime too."

Furiosa stared down at him for the space of a few breaths, trying to think of that thing she needed to be doing that nobody else could do, or would think to do. But Ace was right, Capable and Toast had things in hand, the Vuvalini there for backup and Max too, somewhere, if there was a situation. Oti and Kompass would handle whatever came up on their side.

The Tribunes had acted well in this sudden development, what could have been a crisis or easily turned into one instead one that looked tentatively favorable. And they had been managing the Council well, navigating all the circumstances, and making sure the Citadel’s working flowed smoothly. The Tribunes had been there ever since she’d been unable to when she’d initially came back, stepped in and stepped up to lead.

And she _was_ tired. The adrenaline of first seeing the convoy, of thinking they were coming under attack all over again, had long since worn off and the idea of sinking down here next to Ace and just rest for a while was…. Was very attractive.

"Just a short while," she told him. "To make sure you stay put."

He hummed agreeably and made space for her to curl up next to him, as if it was okay to be tired, okay to rest before exhaustion made her collapse. As if it was her right and her reward.

“And I’ll make sure you get up again when we’re needed,” he promised. There was something new about his smile as he watched her, but she couldn't quite define what.

When she woke up it was dark. She heard Ace's soft snore, felt Austeyr's bodyheat behind her. She could hear Rachet's breathing on Ace's other side.

"'Ev’rything's fine, Boss," Kompass breathed sleepily

“Max?”

Kompass yawned, “Crashing in Ace’s room. Said to call on him if we needed him."

Furiosa hummed in acknowledgement, a little disappointed - she'd really hoped he could be there, now. Still, letting them know he was nearby, even _where_ he was - that was… well, it was something.

She felt Kompass shift closer.

"Boss?"

"Mm?"

"Volt was talkin' about how he'd heard rumours roundabouts of the 'Furies,'" Kompass said quietly, sounding a little uncertain. "Said he shoulda realised that was us."

"Furies," Furiosa repeated, smiling sleepily. "That's how they're calling you all now?”

“Not all the war boys I think just…” he shifted a bit, “Just us. Your crew.”

She let the name roll about in her mind and it felt like lying back on morning-warmed stone, “I like it."

"Yeah? You're… you don't mind?" It took her a moment to realise that it was still ingrained in them that they were the Immortan's, and that calling themselves anybody else's would have been punished.

"Mm. Easier than saying 'my crew' when you're not all—" she yawned, "—on my rig crew anymore."

"That's true," he said, sounding like he was smiling.

"Furies," she sighed fondly, already drifting off to sleep again.

**Author's Note:**

> Re Gilly: Australian aboriginal proverb from [here](http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/source/a/australian_aboriginal_proverb/#sthash.DF5m7a1i.dpuf).
> 
> So there's many feels about the fact that, while the POC representation could be better in the movie with more Aboriginal actors both male and female, the fact that warboys are metaphorically ‘raised white’ speaks to Australia’s historically bad and ongoing issue with white men raping indigenous women and stealing their children to be raised as white.
> 
> The flipside/vuvalini-side to the story is that Valkyrie's actress Megan Gale is mixed race Maori, and I would not be surprised if their actresses were also mixed race or their characters are as well, especially given Australia's history of attempted cultural and literal genocide.
>
>> When “act of genocide” was used in the 1997 landmark report Bringing Them Home, which revealed that thousands of Indigenous children had been stolen from their communities by white institutions and systematically abused, a campaign of denial was launched by a far-right clique around the then prime minister John Howard. It included those who called themselves the Galatians Group, then Quadrant, then the Bennelong Society; the Murdoch press was their voice. ([source](http://bonehandledknife.tumblr.com/post/120405117040/australia-has-again-declared-war-on-its-indigenous))


End file.
